This blog contains information about Wickliff Clayton Raymond and his ancestors. “Clate” Raymond was born 13 March 1898 in Smithfield, Cache, Utah and died on 25 January 1993 in Logan, Cache, Utah.

26 July 2009

Ireta Pitcher Raymond

I am the ninth child of James D. and Nancy Jane Smith Pitcher. I was born 18 November 1899 in Cardston Alberta Canada. Mother had twelve children.

We moved from Canada back to Utah in 1905. My father bought the property at the beginning of 2nd West and 1st North. The first school I attended was in an old chapel which Ben Tueller bought and remodeled into a home.

When I was twelve years old Mother let me go to Cache, Idaho, which is a small community in Teton Basin, to live with my sister LaVerna Allen who had gone there to live. I went to the 6th-7th-and 8th grades in Idaho. I went to North Cache High School for one term.

I worked for people in their homes, doing house work. The wages were $3.00, or if they were real generous, $3.50 per week. I worked at the Romney apple orchard many falls picking and packing apples. My father was a coal dealer. The office was just a little East of the Utah-Idaho street car station. My father had a slow paralysis; he was ill for 15 years. I helped him at the coal office. I weighed the coal and kept the books for him.

I married W. Clayton Raymond 13 Nov. 1918. This was the year of the great flu epidemic so we had to cancel the shower and wedding reception. We were married at mother's home and went to the Logan Temple the next March. Bishop Chris J. Plowman married us at mother's home.

Our first home was two rooms in Clara Bingham's home, (now owned by Henry Coleman) one room downstairs and the bed room upstairs. We started to buy the little log home West of Alma Raymond's home, but soon gave it up. We rented several places. In 1923 we bought a building lot from Dad and moved a two roomed house on it. By 1925 we had three children, (our first baby was ill for a year and passed away in April 1921) and were getting a little crowded, so in June 1926 we moved into two rooms at Clate's father's place. By August our new home was finished and we moved back home.

The date 13 comes up several times in our family. Clate's Aunt Lizzie Plowman was born March 13. Clate was born March 13. Clate's sister Florence was born Oct. 13. We were married Nov. 13. Our first baby was born Sept. 13. Our son Cleve Al was married July 13. And our first great-grand child, daughter of Larry Clayton Raymond and Sherill Ann Raymond, was born Dec. 13.

We had five children: Maxine born 13 Sept. 1919, Budd Clayton born 21 March 1922, Barbara born 28 July 1923, Rhonda born 20 Nov. 1925, Cleve Al born 6 April 1929.

Clate's mother died 1913.

(From a type-written autobiography in the possession of Cleve Al Raymond, son of Ireta Pitcher Raymond.)